The tagline of Ender's Game - 'the classic novel of one boy's destiny among the stars' - hooked me when I first came across it as a teenager. Science fiction isn't everyone's cup of tea, but this particular book is a strong recommendation.

In the future, parents on Earth are restricted to a maximum of two children, and mankind is under the threat of invasion from a hostile alien race. The International Fleet is forced to seek for its salvation amongst the planet's gifted youth - and in particular it looks to the children of John-Paul and Theresa Wiggin.

Despite their high intelligence, Peter, the eldest, is deemed too unstable and violent, and his sister Valentine too docile to enter military education. The family is one of very few permitted to have another child, and it is their third that the book focuses on. Andrew, nicknamed Ender by his sister, is maligned from his birth, ridiculed by his peers now that third children have become a persecuted minority. He is torn away from his family at the age of six and forced to undergo a gruelling military upbringing on the off-world Battle School.

Singled out by the International Fleet as the last hope for the human race, Ender accelerates through the ranks, but is subjected to a cruel programme of isolation and emotional torture in order that he may develop the cold killer-instinct and strategical expertise required. Those friends that he makes are quickly made his enemies, as he is forced to face them in the School's Battle Room – a zero-gravity environment at the centre of the artificial planet where the students engage in simulated combat.

Orson Scott Card's tale is expertly crafted, allowing insight not only to the mind of this suffering child, frequently pushed to mental and physical breaking point, but also to that of his mentor Colonel Graff, who must constantly wrestle with his growing paternal empathy for Ender and his sworn duty to the human race to drive Ender to finish his training.

The author's tender exploration of the strong bond between Ender and his sister Valentine, despite the distance separating them, is a fine one, but Orson Scott Card shows his ability as a writer with his descriptions of Ender's isolation. The book captures what it feels like to be alone. The weight of the world rests on the boy's shoulders, and - along with Ender - the reader cannot help but wonder if it's all just too much for one child to take.

The book is the first part of a saga. The sequel is a very different book, but is as good as, if not better than, Ender's Game. Speaker For The Dead focuses on the themes of atonement and redemption as Ender leads the human race into their first contact with a sentient alien species. It's a masterpiece of hypothetical anthropology.

By writing from the point of view of a child, Orson Scott Card universalises the story for a readership outside the genre's usual following. My copy is heavily worn from all the hands it has passed through - and I don't know a single person who hasn't loved it.

(c) Hugh de la Bédoyère 2008

reviewed 26 February 08 / London

NOTES - Ender's Game, first published 1985, written by Orson Scott Card, is available from eg Amazon (www.amazon.com). Further information at eg Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ender's_Game